Dangal - Sporting authenticity meets rich narrative

Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) flips and slams down his challenger in an office-friendly and then tells him “don’t feel bad; you lost to a former national champion”. 

That opening scene establishes the thumping flavor of Dangal for the next two and a half hours.

Through the narrow lanes of Bhiwani (recreated in the villages of Punjab and Haryana), the movie takes you on a journey of dreams, ambition, and persistence.

Clutch your heart tightly, because Dangal will tug at many levels.

This is not just about a father’s struggle to give his daughters equal opportunity. In fact, it is not, because Phogat actually wanted a son to make his dreams come true.

Director Nitesh Tiwari keeps the wrestling mat firmly in the centre of this sports drama that is based on the true story of the Phogat family. But the core really is at its wider rims – child marriage; gender bias; superstitions; the rule of patriarchy and general apathy towards sporting excellence in India.

Phogat, a former national champion, dreams of a son who will take forward his legacy. His desire for “Mhara betta” gets frustrated, when every time the midwife announces the birth of a girl - “Chorri hui hai”. After four girls, a disspirited Phogat lets go of his dream; but not for long. A chance discovery of lurking potential in his elder two daughters re-kindles the old desire. If his pre-teen girls could beat the neighborhood boys to pulp in a street brawl, then they should be able to wrestle too!

It’s a classic Carpe Diem moment.

What leaves you gasping is the audacity of Phogat’s ambition and the resoluteness with which he goes after his goal.

Arms folded over his massive chest and a blueprint in his formidable eye, he unleashes a slew of draconian measures on the young girls to make them champion wrestlers.

Ah, but they want no part of his dream.

How they scheme and resist is funny. How they are helpless in a rigidly patriarchic household is poignant.

Their mother (played by Sakshi Tanwar), is trapped. Who will marry our girls if they start wrestling? What will society say? How can I go against my husband? Indeed, questions that haunt most women in India.

The girls have no choice but to give in, and the training begins. Soon, they start enjoying local stardom with district-level wins. Gita, the elder of the two sisters has bigger things in store. Her journey from a local star, to state and national champion is tightly scripted in a lucid narrative of events, ruthless bouts, and victories.

Growing up also means a chance to go away. The simmering resentment against an authoritarian father fuels Gita's urge to break the shackles of discipline and routine. She leaves home to join the National Sports Academy in Patiala. Freedom at last! She grows her hair, paints her nails, gorges on food and enjoys the attention of male athletes at the Academy.

She also routinely loses all her international matches. No one tells you that freedom is a perplexing paradox.

For Gita, it's a painful coming-of-age experience. Her return to the old norm and affirmation of her father as her mentor makes for therapeutic viewing. Well, for parents at least. "Didn't we tell you so?"

With father now firmly back as coach, will his method and instruction help her to break her jinx at international competitions?

Nitesh Tiwari recreates every bout, match, and training routine faithfully. The excitement, and above all the patriotic fervor are palpable.

Mischief, anger, frustration, brawls, and bouts are also touchingly depicted and for this, the credit also goes to Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar. These munchkins who play the younger Gita and Babita sisters hold their own against giant performer Aamir with aplomb.

Fatima Sana Shaikh as grown-up Gita could just be the find of the year. Every time you start gawking at her breathtaking beauty, she draws you in with her superior acting skills. Her svelte moves are poetry in motion; graceful, but never losing their athleticism.

Audiences love morals, messages and moments of truth. Dangal presents more than one in a finely woven mosaic of sport and story.

Above all, what audiences love most is to be told that great victories are savored after conquering great challenges.

Dangal scripts that victory with a high degree of fidelity and Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh Phogat is its most faithful protagonist.

Manne Picture Achchi Lagi

SULTAN
3.5/5

A script without substance and loud songs with frivolous lyrics, make the first one-hour of Sultan silly to the point of being embarrassing. 

But if you manage not to walk out, the remaining one hour and fifty minutes will be absolutely mesmerising.

This is a touching coming-of-age movie that grows on you scene after scene, fight after fight, line after line.

Director Ali Abbas Zafar weaves moral and message with terrific sporting entertainment.

‘Wrestling is not a sport. It is about fighting what lies within’ – the opening line sets the tone for what is to come.

When Salman Khan as Sultan slaps his shoulder and thigh and moves with lightning speed towards his opponent, you know this is as good as the real thing. The intensive training that the Khan underwent with international action director Larnell Stovall comes alive in every fight scene.

The power, the technique and the raw force of the sport have been recreated with such thumping authenticity that one could well be watching a real wrestling championship tournament.

The brutal training, the simmering anger, the pain and finally the redemption make for gripping viewing.

Sultan Ali Khan, a Haryanvi village lad is smitten by local wrestling champion Aarfa Hussain, played by Anushka Sharma. Stung by her rejection and to prove himself, he learns the sport with dogged determination.

Through winning tournaments, he wins Aarfa’s heart, and eventually the Olympic gold. Sultan is now the poster boy of India’s wrestling sport.

As Sultan moves from anonymity to stardom, his wife Aarfa's life crumbles from happiness to tragedy.

Through loss, pain, and anger, Sultan and Aarfa must now struggle against their souls to give life another chance, to forgive each other and ultimately forgive themselves. This is the essence of the film.

When Sultan slaps his chest and thigh once again, it is for redemption, but of a different kind. This time he must learn a new fight – Mixed Martial Arts.

The opponents are global superstars; the rules are alien and the ring is not his traditional Akhara.

The battle for vindication is not just Sultan’s. Akash Oberoi (Amit Sadh) must prove himself to the Board by salvaging the pro wrestling league that has incurred heavy losses in the first two years. He brings Sultan to Delhi for a do-or-die final league tournament.

Then there is former freestyle martial arts champion Fateh Singh, played by Randeep Hooda who agrees to coach him for the pro wrestling tournament. He has his own ghosts to be laid to rest.

Anushka Sharma as Aarfa is outstanding. She puts up a restrained and mature performance bringing out the different shades of her character – a feisty Haryanvi girl, a focused champion, a supportive wife and a deeply pained woman. Without hysteria or contorted expressions, she delivers a character that you can relate to. That she looks absolutely stunning minus the makeup is a bonus.

Sultan’s Akhara coach (and Aarfa’s father) Barkat Husain, Govind his friend and Akash Oberoi underline the lesson that when people believe in you, you can move mountains. Kumud Mishra (Barkat) and Anant Vidhat Sharma (Govind) put up solid performances. Amit Sadh as Akash Oberoi has tremendous potential.

Randeep makes his entry in the second half. Intense, brooding and unrelenting, he plays his role to the hilt. Forgive the completely silly scene that introduces him as a wrestling coach eating pudding off little bowls with his finger.

It’s great to watch Salman once again in a rustic role. The brawn and body this time are showcased strictly for the sport. Everything else is conveyed through his eyes. With Bajrangi Bhaijaan and now Sultan, this is in a way Salman's coming-of-age too.

If you can overlook the typical Bollywood excesses and liberties, the film is one good entertainer.

‘Jag Ghoomeya Thaare Jaisa Na Koi’ by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan will be counted among some of the most beautiful songs of recent times.

Old houses, tiny railway stations with steam engines, buffaloes lumbering about, kites flying and cow dung on the walls for the kiln - all captured in the rustic locales of Rewari (Haryana), Ludhiana (Punjab), Muzzafarnagar (UP) and old Delhi, come alive and lend a raw earthiness to the film.

What leaves you smiling throughout however, is the delightful Haryanvi accent.

Manne picture achchi lagi.

ABOVE ALL, AIRLIFT TELLS THE STORY OF HUMANITY

In 1990, we heard the distant boom of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait through a few television channels and read the atrocities in the newspapers. So, the compulsion to watch Airlift and get the inside story was very high.

The film opens by reminding the viewer that it is inspired by true events and is a creative visualisation and re-creation of what happened in 1990 when Saddam Hussein of Iraq attacked a hapless Kuwait.

Most of us might think that Airlift revolves around the actual air evacuation of Indians. But this is no mid-air, action movie. It is intense drama on the ground. It is about the struggles of millionaire businessman Ranjith Katiyal (Akshay Kumar) to help his family and 1,70,000 other Indians in Kuwait to get back to India.

Through a compelling narrative, a well-woven mosaic of visuals and imagery, a sensitive script and punchy dialogues, the movie sets out to be remind us about so many aspects: The inhuman conditions of the Indian labour class slaving in the Gulf to to send some money back home; unemployment so stark that they surrender even what gives them their very identity – their passport; the attitude of the rich Indian diaspora, flourishing, thriving, adopting their new home and ever so quick to criticize their Motherland; the apathy of the Indian bureaucracy; the senselessness and brutality of war; the telling irony that war levels the rich and poor to one class – that of fleeing refugees; and ultimately the fact that it is the Motherland that you will turn to for help and it is the Motherland that will come to your rescue.

The movie is set in 1990. Twenty five years hence, one cannot help but wonder, what of the above has changed today. Producers Nikhil Advani et. al., clearly knew that the myriad stories of the event that began on August 1^st 1990 will always resonate, cutting across time and geographies. Because, above all Airlift tells the story of humanity. Of how people go beyond their beliefs, boundaries, limitations and comfort zones, to do good. Of how circumstances push ordinary men and women to discover their extraordinary selves.

Director Raja Krishna Menon puts together an engrossing 2hour 10 minutes. But it stops short of being a great enduring war movie. The opulence of oil rich Kuwait and the Middle Eastern terrain could have been leveraged better with cinematography. The script has some loose elements. The conversation between Ranjith Katiyal and the Indian Diplomat at the Jordan Embassy is flippant and lacks substance. The bureaucratic bottlenecks were glossed over, without a deeper insight into how the machinery works. After big expectations from Nimrat Kaur, it is a somewhat lacking performance.  Inaamulhaq as the self serving and egotistical Iraqi Major Khalaf bin Zayd was amateurish and forced. One couldn't help thinking how Irfan Khan or Nawazuddin Siddiqui would have essayed this role. Akshay Kumar moves effortlessly from the rich, arrogant businessman to a responsible, sensitive citizen. But pain is clearly not Akshay's forte. The shock and suffering of seeing his driver killed before his eyes was a crucial moment in the narrative, one that could have become the turning point in the film. Akshay simply fails to evoke the intensity of pain and it remains just another war incident. Not the fountainhead that it could have been, from where the rest of the emotions would have sprung. 

All said and done, the astonishing facts on which this film is based makes viewing a big experience. It is about 1,70,000 Indians who were safely brought back to India through 486 flights of Air India. To date, it remains the largest human evacuation in history.

JAI HIND!

pk: sasura ka picture banaya humra gola bara ma

Try making a movie on a hypersensitive theme. Chances are that we’ll have to sit through long dialogues, violence and high drama. But then the genius of Rajkumar Hirani and Aamir Khan don’t take that route. 

Watch them drive at the heart of a super sensitive message, without getting preachy.

They did it before with 3 Idiots and they do it again with pk. And they are authoring a unique genre of cinema - "comedy with compassion".

Anushka Sharma not only looks fresh and beautiful, but holds ground against the might of Aamir Khan and Boman Irani. Sanjay Dutt rocks with amazing ease as Bhairon Singh.

When most would have selected London, Singapore, Bangkok or some city in the US for the “foreign” touch, Hirani picks out Belgium. Wow! Simply sets the movie apart.

Watch Aamir in the Pandal scene where he asks the gods that are in various stages of creation, to help him. Powerful, sensitive and compassionate – that’s the soul scene of pk.

The genius of 3 Idiots

Tens & and hundreds of reviews have already been done on this movie. Thousands worldwide have watched it and millions in moolah raked in the first 10 days. 

I watched the movie twice in the last 7 days across 2 countries and despite so much already written about it – I am tempted to offer a little tribute myself to the genius of 3 Idiots (pardon the oxymoron).

Talk about using a channel well to get a message across. 3 idiots is a brilliant example of a serious message being conveyed through a film that is at once funny, sensitive and utterly lovable.

Right from the word 'go' the script grips you and you are laughing, crying and holding your breath in a brilliant roller-coaster of a film. 

This is another stupendous act by Aamir Khan. However, the credit for direction goes to Rajkumar Hirani. One slip and the film could have gone anywhere. But Raj keeps the focus tight and the pace unrelenting. 

Madhavan and Sharman Joshi as Aamir’s idiotic friends are very commendable. The real heroes however are Omi Vaidya as "Silencer" Chatur Ramalingam and Boman Irani as Prof “Virus” – Viru Sahasrabuddhe. 

If we are laughing hours and days after watching the movie – it is because of Chatur (Omi ) -the typical bespectacled, close collared, text-book toting, subject roting, America loving student. He unleashes havoc with his accent that is a cross between Tamilian-Ugandan –American. I could watch this movie another 10 times, see something new each time and die laughing, – oh boy!

And as for Boman Irani,– this has got to be his best performance so far. The jowl, the frown, the lisp, the gait, the shuffle – the whole act of an eccentric Professor is just perfect. No silliness here for the sake of comedy. Boman, along with Omi, holds up the mirror to a Viru or a Chatur that is present in a lot of us – living and dying by someone else's yardstick; following systems; trapped and unable to see beyond grades, marks, degrees, salaries, numbers, data, surveys, graphs and dashboards.

The music is very hummable and grows on you. Of course, there is the odd dramatic and hard to believe scene here and there – engineering students delivering a baby with a vacuum cleaner; or a lifeless baby kicking to life when it hears – “all is well”.

But who cares? Simply suspend your disbelief, enjoy the film, come out and do “mutra visarjan” on the stupid system - if you are caught in one.

Didn’t get it, idiot? Never mind. All izz well.